No Sanctuary

by Z. J. Cannon

  Engstrom laughed the same tired laugh, but this time it went on and on, a droning monotone. “You think I was responsible for that? That the magic is on my side? Believe me, Kieran Thorne, if I controlled the magic here, the water would have parted for you like the Red Sea.”

  “Then who does the magic belong to, if you’re not controlling it?” I looked up at the high tower window, where I thought I had seen the curtains rustle a moment ago. Now the curtains were still.

  “Is this really why you risked your life to come here? So we could have a chat about magic?” Engstrom shook his head. “Do what you came for, Kieran Thorne. End this.”

  No. This was too easy. “What’s your story? Why are you the key to Arkanica?”

  “Do you want Arkanica gone or not? Destroy me. Destroy this place.” Engstrom’s faded voice took on a hint of impatience. It was the first real sign of life I had seen from him so far.

  I crossed my arms to mirror his. “What’s your relationship with the fae? Are you a prisoner here?”

  “Enough,” Engstrom snapped. “You came here for a reason.” He marched toward me.

  I backed up. “Answer my question.”

  “My relationship with the fae?” he said, without slowing down. “That’s simple. I went to them to make a deal. They were kind enough to oblige me. They gave me everything I asked for, and in return, I agreed to complete an assignment for them. Because of me, faelight will soon be the dominant form of fuel on earth. This planet will be powered by the blood of the Winter Court. Unless you stop me.” He bared his teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Do you really need to know more than that?”

  That reminder of who he was and what he had done, along with that not-smile of his, made my magic stir a little. But as he came closer, giving me a better look at his sunken face, the power retreated again. Charles Engstrom was no larger-than-life villain. Whatever else he was, he was a weak, tired man, practically begging me to kill him. For second, instead of Engstrom walking toward me, I saw Delaney hanging suspended in the air in front of me, with the ruins of downtown Hawthorne behind her.

  But that wasn’t the only reason I took another step back instead of readying myself to give him what he was asking for. He wanted this too badly. Which was, in itself, enough of a reason not to give it to him.

  I couldn’t back up any further without hitting the ocean. Engstrom saw me stop, and smiled. He kept walking until he was an arm’s length away from me, then stopped. “I was in close contact with Arkanica headquarters in the days before you destroyed it, did you know that? My eyes and ears there told me about your attachment to the fae woman Vicantha. They thought you would sacrifice yourself to save her, and submit to our experiments. I don’t need to tell you how badly they miscalculated. But not because they misjudged your attachment to the woman, I think.”

  My magic leapt to attention at the mention of Vicantha’s name. A sudden gust of wind rattled the thorn bushes. Their branches clacked against one another. Engstrom smiled—a real smile, this time. Although it still didn’t reach his eyes.

  No. This was what he wanted. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to banish Vicantha’s face from my mind.

  But even with my eyes closed, I could still hear Engstrom’s voice. “I suppose I shouldn’t put the blame on them—not when the idea was mine to start with. I’m the one who told them to store her with the long-term fuel sources. It was the best place to lay a trap, and besides, I wanted you to see her there. I needed you to know what her future would be if you didn’t give us what we asked for.”

  Vicantha lying in that plastic cylinder, head shaved, tubes running out of her body. Staring up at me, eyes full of rage, fully aware but unable to act. My hands clenched. I opened my eyes in time to see a lash of wind tear one of the thorn bushes out of the ground, roots and all, and slam it against the nearest window. Dry brown leaves fluttered to the ground.

  “Actually, if they had taken my advice, they would have done worse,” Engstrom continued. “I told them to go ahead and take an eye, or maybe a hand. Just to demonstrate what else we could do to her if you refused. Besides, fae transplants are going to be worth a fortune before too long. We haven’t even gone public yet, and we already have people lining up for the chance to be the first to give up their own eye or hand or heart, purely for the prestige of replacing it with the fae equivalent. Even though none of our experiments have shown any significant medical benefit. People are funny, aren’t they?”

  The rest of the thorn bushes arced into the air, one by one. One spun in a circle before disappearing behind the house. Two more landed in the ocean.

  The windows of the house rattled. Sand filled the air. The grit made my eyes water. I could taste it on my tongue.

  I couldn’t give him what he wanted. He was trying to trick me somehow, to trap me—I didn’t know how, but I didn’t see what else he could be after. I searched the ground for something iron to grab onto. But of course, I found nothing. Just sand, torn-off branches of the uprooted bushes, and a few clumps of dead grass.

  Engstrom laughed. He opened his arms to the wind.

  I dug up a memory of Delaney. I pictured her bleeding from the cuts my magic had opened, her lips moving in a plea I couldn’t hear. I held that image up as a shield between me and the magic. But my magic was inside me; my magic was me. And somewhere deep inside, I had decided to do what I came here to do, regardless of Engstrom’s helplessness and all the things about him that didn’t add up. I had made the decision the instant he had said Vicantha’s name.

  Engstrom ran at me, fists raised. He yelled wordlessly into the spinning sand.

  My brain shrieked an alarm. Never mind that I knew he couldn’t do anything to me with just his fists. Never mind that I was perfectly aware all he wanted was to provoke me into killing him. By the time those thoughts came to me, it was already too late. The sand was so thick in the air now that I couldn’t see Engstrom in front of me. The last shreds of the memory of Delaney tore from my grasp, ripped away by my own power.

  Engstrom didn’t fight back. He couldn’t. But that didn’t stop the howling of the wind. When I had set my magic loose on JD, it had stopped at the sound of his pleas, even though he had been far from defenseless. But that felt like a lifetime ago.

  We all had to make compromises. Whether that meant making deals with people like Ashante, or killing someone who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—fight back. I had understood this for a while now; I had just been waiting for my magic to catch up. It looked like it finally had.

  I had thought it would feel more satisfying than this.

  The sand between us turned red. It clung to my skin, hot and wet and reeking of human blood. Other things flew through the air, bits of skin and muscle and other things I was glad I couldn’t name. As the wind shifted, I caught a brief glimpse of Engstrom standing in front of me—or what had been Engstrom a few seconds ago. Now there was only a skeleton, still standing upright, bones scraped white from the whirling sand.

  The wind slowed, then stopped. The last of the sand dropped to the ground. I had done the right thing, I reminded myself. I had done what I had to do. Engstrom was gone, and Arkanica with him.

  But he had wanted this. He had provoked me into it. And as soon as he had pressed the right buttons, as soon as I had heard Vicantha’s name, my fickle power had given him exactly what he wanted.

  What had I done?

  I realized I was squeezing my eyes shut. To protect them against the sand, I might have thought, except that it had stopped spinning before I had closed them.

  I forced them open. I wasn’t too much of a coward to look at what I had done.

  The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a pair of empty eye sockets staring into mine. A skeletal mouth grinned at me. Engstrom’s bones were still standing in front of me, bony toes gripping the sand.

  With a soft sigh, the air started moving again. All around the two of us, sand lifted off the ground. But it wasn’t my doing thi
s time. My magic was curled up in my core again, satisfied.

  I braced myself for an attack—but the sand didn’t come near me. It was all moving in the same direction: toward Engstrom’s bones.

  Then I realized it wasn’t sand at all.

  Chunks of muscle, flaps of skin, tiny droplets of blood—they all rushed at Engstrom’s skeleton. First a few at a time, then more and more, faster and faster. The sticky mess covering my arms pulled away from my skin with a painful tug. The sand fell away, while the blood rushed into the brand-new veins that were, as I watched, knitting themselves into Engstrom’s flesh.

  Cold amusement radiated from the island. I thought I heard that murky voice chuckle, long and low.

  The whole process took less than a minute. When the wind died down again, Engstrom was standing in front of me, looking exactly the same as before he had lured my magic out. The only difference was that his clothes were gone. He was stark naked, but didn’t seem to notice or care.

  “I hope that was a sufficient demonstration.” It wasn’t a taunt. He didn’t sound amused, or even triumphant. Just tired. “You can’t kill me, Kieran Thorne. Now that you know that, you’re ready to hear what I have to say.”

  “What are you?” No one had mentioned Engstrom being anything other than human. But then, no one had said much of anything at all about him. What he had just done, though—that was beyond the capabilities of even the fae. Those of us with fae blood could repair our bodies in ways that would be impossible for a human—but even full-blooded fae couldn’t simply pull the damaged parts back together. Especially when none of those parts had been bigger than a quarter.

  And his blood was red. Human red. But humans couldn’t do what he had done, any more than the fae could.

  Only now did a hint of wry amusement cross his face. “What am I? A living cautionary tale. And the solution to your problems—if you’re willing to solve mine for me in return. Come inside, Kieran Thorne. We’ll talk. After all, what else do you have to do with your time, now that you’ve done what you came here for?”

  He started toward the house. I didn’t follow.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Well? What are you going to do—stand out here until the answers come to you on the waves? Are you hoping for a message in a bottle, perhaps? Or maybe you think you’ll swim back. If so, go on and give it a try—I’ll wait. Your drowned corpse will be back here soon enough.”

  He didn’t wait for me to respond. He walked inside. He stopped just over the threshold, and held the door open.

  I knew better than to follow this man anywhere. But he was right—what else was I going to do? If I wanted answers, I wasn’t going to find them out here on the beach. I did my best to quiet my internal alarms, and followed him.

  Just before I stepped inside, I looked up again, drawn by an impulse I didn’t understand. Up in the tower, the curtains rustled.

  Chapter 27

  The inside of the house was as much of a mishmash as the outside. The styles spanned centuries, from ancient to modern, each room more sumptuous than the next. We must have passed through at least half a dozen rooms that had no discernable purpose, all cluttered not just with furniture but wall hangings and sculptures and small useless knickknacks, until there was barely room for us to squeeze by.

  But the room where he led me was ascetically plain. Bare stone walls, bare stone floor. The only furniture was an unpolished wooden table with a backless bench to either side. A single window looked out on the ocean.

  Engstrom caught me looking around at the decor, or the lack of it. “I had everything moved from this room to the attic a few years ago,” he said. “I spend most of my time in here these days. I find it restful.”

  He placed one hand on the table. “Food, please.” The rough wood bubbled under his hand. When he pulled his hand back, a plate shaped like a stylized wave lay in the space where he had been touching. It was piled high with cherry tarts, cheese curls, and what looked like pickled onions.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Interesting selection.”

  Engstrom looked down at the plate, like it hadn’t occurred to him until that moment to wonder what was on it. “I let the magic choose for itself, these days. It makes no difference to me what it chooses to feed me. Its selections can be a bit… eclectic. But it does also accept requests. If there’s anything you’d like…” He looked at me questioningly.

  I shook my head. It wasn’t as if I planned to eat anything he offered me anyway. “This will be fine.”

  “If you’re sure.” He waited another few seconds for me to change my mind. When I didn’t, he went on. “Eat as much as you like while I get myself cleaned up and… more appropriately dressed for company.” He shot a rueful look down at his birthday suit. “I didn’t take into account the effect your magic would have on clothing. It’s for the best, though—it’s been a long time since I’ve entertained visitors, as I’m sure you can tell.” He fingered a lock of his stringy hair. “My dear companion usually reminds me to do things like get dressed and shower, but lately we’ve both been preoccupied with preparing for your arrival. We heard the news about Eddie, you see, and could guess where you would come next.”

  “That was only two days ago.” From the look—and smell—of him, he had been preoccupied for a lot longer than that.

  “Was it?” His eyebrows twitched halfheartedly upward. “Ah, well. Time works differently here.”

  That immediately set me on alert. I only knew of one place where time did strange things. “Where exactly are we?” I asked slowly.

  “You’re wondering if you’ve crossed into Faerie, I take it. No. We’re not in their realm. But we’re not precisely in ours, either.”

  Which was hardly an answer to my question. As I opened my mouth to point that out, he walked to the door, moving like a wind-up toy that had reached the end of its energy. “Don’t worry. When I come back, I’ll explain everything.”

  With that, he left the room and shut the door behind him.

  The first thing I did, of course, was try the door. Of course it was locked. My magic might have been able to blast it off its hinges, but it still hadn’t come back to full strength after what I had done—or tried to do—to Engstrom. I wasn’t sure it would have worked anyway. The house had stayed stubbornly undamaged through the storm I had caused earlier. Not so much as a broken window or a stone out of place.

  I settled in to wait for Engstrom. I kept my eyes on the door, and my ears attuned to any sounds from the hallway. I didn’t sit, and I definitely didn’t touch the food. I had heard too many legends about what happened when someone ate or drank something given to them by the fae, and they all seemed relevant here.

  After only a few minutes, footsteps echoed outside the door. I tensed, but it was only Engstrom, wearing an exact replica of his earlier outfit. His hair was wet and pulled back in a braid. The stink of unwashed human was gone; now he smelled faintly of honeysuckle.

  He held something out to me. My inner senses reacted with a jolt of alarm before I consciously processed what was in his hands. I took a step back. Then I took another once my eyes caught up to my gut. Engstrom was holding a rusted length of iron chain.

  “Whatever you’re thinking of doing,” I said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Engstrom shook his head, looking amused. “If I were going to attack you, Kieran Thorne, I wouldn’t start by offering you a gift.”

  I eyed the chain. The rust had already left red-brown streaks across Engstrom’s fingers. “As gifts go, yours leaves a lot to be desired.”

  “My dear companion told me you would be wanting something iron to wear. I would have chosen something with more class, if I had anything on hand. But I’m afraid this is the only scrap of iron in the house. They bound her with it, you see. She was still bound when she came to me.” For a second, genuine pain crossed his empty face. Then he shook his head, and his eyes cleared. He set the chain down on the floor between us. “It’s your choice. But if I were
you, I would take it. It would be a waste of my time and yours if we spent our time together repeating the scene outside over and over.”

  He did have a point there. I reached out slowly for the chain, half-expecting it to shoot out and wrap itself around my wrists. But fae magic couldn’t affect iron, so of course nothing happened. I grabbed it in my fist, and instantly my awareness of my magic winked out.

  That was all that happened. No poison, no magical attack, no sudden and inexplicable desire to trust everything Engstrom said. At least not that I could tell. I snuck a glance at Engstrom, watching his eyes for a telltale glint of triumph, but he looked mildly curious at most.

  I held onto the chain for a moment, pondering how best to wear it. It wasn’t as if I could tie it around my wrist like a watch, and the thought of dragging it around clenched in my fist didn’t appeal to me. Finally, I settled for wrapping it around my waist and tying it in a loose knot.

  It wasn’t ideal, to say the least. One end still dragged the floor. It would take too long to undo the knot, if I needed my magic in a hurry. And the skin of my abdomen wasn’t toughened and scarred from centuries of iron contact like my wrist. The sensitive nerves protested with every tiny movement, and I could already feel blisters rising under the chain.

  But it would do. “Thank you,” I said, more than a little grudgingly.

  “You can thank my dear companion, when you see her. For now, sit. I’d like to tell you a story.” He lowered himself to the closer of the benches and motioned for me to join him.

  I thought about staying where I was, but he was right—if he was going to attack, I was sure he had better weapons available than a vicious attack bench. I sat down on the bench opposite him. It didn’t try to eat me, which was a start. But I opted not to rest my arms on the table—I had just seen it transform part of itself into a plate of dubious food, after all.